


the evil it spread like a fever ahead

by silentfaith



Series: we're all gonna die [1]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, light gore, references to mental illnesses, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentfaith/pseuds/silentfaith
Summary: Chris makes a choice.





	

**Author's Note:**

> ahoy.
> 
> you want some angst? here's some angst.
> 
> set during the first "choose who dies" trap.

No. No, he didn't want to do this. Chris couldn't do this. His head hurt and his vision was blurry but it was so clear, so clear to see that the two people he cared about most in the world were chained up, and the saw. God, the spinning, whirring, sharp, sharp saw. For a moment he didn't understand, what the fuck was this, he just wanted to find Ashley, find Josh, just wanted to help Josh feel better with a trip up on the mountain.

This couldn't be happening. The low, menacing voice and his friends' shouts were white noise to his thoughts.

"...choose who you will save."

What? No, that couldn't be right. He couldn't choose just one of them, he loved them both. Ash was sweet and caring and awesome, and Josh was his best friend. How could he choose?

Shit. Shitfuck. How could he kill one of them?

"Oh Crap. Oh Crap. Oh Crap. Oh Crap. Oh Crap." His thoughts were going a mile a minute and none of them made any goddamn sense. His head hurt.

"Dude, buddy... Let's just think about this for a minute -" Josh started, but Ashley cut him off in her panic.

"Oh my god! Chris! You can't let me die!" She was right, he couldn't, but Josh, but Josh.

"Just- just- just... Gimme a second... I- I can't think straight... shit..." His head hurt, so did his chest, like someone had reached a hand into it and squeezed out all the air in his lungs. Oh, god, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't let them die.

He tried the door. Of fucking course, it was locked, he knew that, but god what else could he do? What else could he do? He picked up a metal cage like the one that had fallen earlier and threw it at the glass. It bounced off, not leaving a scratch.

"I'm sorry, Christopher, but there will be no cheating in this game of ours." 

"Fuck you!" he yelled uselessly, tears welling up in his eyes.

The saw started moving on its track.

"No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no..." He ran to the lever and grabbed it, his gaze flicking up to meet the eyes of the very panicked hostages, still saying words that he couldn't muddle through in time to comprehend their composition. He had to choose. He had to choose. _Fuck._

"God, Ash - I'm sorry," he said.

"Chris please! Oh... oh god," she sobbed, struggling against her binds. "This is insane... This is nuts. This isn't happening. Chris! Please tell me this isn't happening!" He wished it wasn't. Why was it? Hadn't they been through enough?

"I-I don't know what to do!" he responded. He couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't live with himself if he did.

"Bro! Bro, we've been through so much, c'mon... I don't wanna go out like this!" Josh shouted. _You won't. You won't._

"Chris please! I'm so scared! Please don't let them kill us!" _I'm sorry, Ashley. I'm so sorry._

"I know - I know we haven't been the best of friends lately a-and I've been kinda messed up and everything - but I'm getting better, man - I swear!" Chris shook his head, biting his lip so hard he tasted blood. _It doesn't matter, even if you weren't -_

He chose. Chris pulled the lever towards Josh's photo.

But the track turned to him. Josh screamed, yelled his name.

The voice, the one that would haunt his nightmares for years, echoed through the shed. "Ah... I see. You have chosen to save - Ashley."

Chris' breathe escaped him in a whisper. "No."

"Oh, god - Josh!" Ashley yelled, straining but failing to look at the other man.

"I thought we were friends man! I thought we were friends, why would you do this?" he yelled, his voice cracking. Chris' head swam, it hurt so fucking bad. 

"No," he said a little louder, but he was frozen on the spot, unable to move his body, his body that feels miles away, unable to do anything but watch as the blade drew near to a fearful Josh.

Ashley screamed, something else tucked away in his subconscious for nightmares to come, but it's Josh's last words will haunt him 'til he's dead, he's sure. He snapped back into his body, runs to the door, desperately banging against it and shaking the handle, but it was useless, like him. He needed to get in there, he needed to stop it, he needed to save Josh, save Josh, save Josh -

"No, oh god what did I do!?" The saw cut into Josh, cut off his strangled scream, cut his life short.

Chris fell to his knees, his hand still holding the door handle like a lifeline. "Nothing, nothing, you didn't do anything, please god no." He rocked back and forth, eyes glued to the pane around the large, stupid windows, but in his peripheral he sees the lower half of Josh's body drop to the floor. No, fuck, no. He couldn't be gone. He couldn't, Chris hadn't apologized yet for being a shit friend this past year, hadn't told Josh how much he meant to him, how he was worth the whole fucking world. "Please, no."

The door clicked, signaling that it unlocked. Chris opened his eyes, pained from crying so hard, and his head hurt. 

As he swung the door open, a numbness washed over him. Cold seeped into his body; it made his bones ache. He couldn't hear the saw, it was too far away. He stepped inside, but froze as his eyes trailed over Josh's face. He didn't feel much, but he thought maybe his heart had stopped. He didn't dwell on it as he moved to Ashley. Her crying seemed to cut through the fog - concern - and he hurried to free her wrists. His hands shook so bad (maybe it was the cold?) but he managed to get her down. 

She stepped forward and swayed a bit towards the still running saw - panic - and he grabbed her and moved her away.

"Don't look," he whispered into her hair, and she obeyed, letting him hold her as they walked through the shed.

They made it outside, into the cold outside, god he was so cold. He let go of her, and wordlessly they broke into a run. Away from the shed, away from their friend, away from the ghosts that lingered in the painfully cold night air.

Ashley stopped when they saw Emily and Matt. Chris fell to his knees, sinking into the snow.

He ignored the duo as they questioned Ashley, and studied his hands as he pushed them into the snow. The back of them looked so unfamiliar, foreign - funny how people said they knew things like the back of their hands? Chris didn't know his at all, he didn't know himself at all, he killed Josh, Josh's blood was on his hands -

Quite literally, in fact, as he found out upon raising his hands and seeing the snow stained red beneath them. He stood, pushed past a confused and concerned Matt and Emily, and promptly threw up behind a tree.

Ashley patted his back as he joined them again, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His felt so tired, all the events of the day hitting all at once. His head hurt.

Emily, pragmatic and persuasive Emily, convinced them to go find Sam in the lodge while she and Matt went to the fire tower. He was too exhausted to disagree, and Ashley probably felt the same, and so they split up like in Scooby Doo. Jinkies.

They walked in silence to the lodge, Ashley leading the way. The house rose before them in the dark, looming, unforgiving. Ashley bounded up the steps and quietly opened the door, poking her head inside before waving to Chris to join her. He did so reluctantly, taking the icy stairs slowly. She waited for him to reach her side before tip-toeing inside. 

As he stepped over the threshold, Chris was hit with flashbacks of his previous times there, staying with Josh and his family for the weekends: watching Mr. Washington's extensive movie collection, having snowball fights against Hannah and Beth, staying up late in Josh's room as the older boy tried to scare him with ghost stories. 

Giving his first kiss away to Josh at fourteen, "just practicing" so he knew what to do when he had a girlfriend; finding Josh throwing up, sick from his meds, comforting him for hours in the middle of the night and sleeping at his side all day; Josh talking him down from a panic attack, back when Chris didn't know about any of his triggers; watching the sun rise, side by side, hands too close to each other to not mean something.

His head hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> can you tell that chris is my favorite? no?? oh.
> 
> to those who are like "update your s.h.i.e.l.d story": look. chris needs to cry more. i don't make the rules.


End file.
